The Budai Arborétum in Budapest: a university botanical garden at the foot of the Gellért

On the southern slope of the Gellért, in Budapest's 11th district (the Lágymányos area), a gate on Villányi út opens onto 7.5 hectares of garden that almost no tourist puts on their itinerary. This is the Budai Arborétum, the botanical garden of the Buda campus of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), and it still functions as a teaching space for students of horticulture and landscape architecture.

The history

The history explains why it stands right here. For centuries these slopes were covered in vineyards, wiped out by phylloxera at the end of the nineteenth century. Even earlier, during the Bach era, the physician and horticulturist Ferenc Entz (1805-1877) — who had been a military doctor in the war of independence of 1848 — founded a training institute for viticulture and horticulture here. From that nucleus grew today's arboretum. In the Upper Garden the first plantings date back to 1893, which puts the oldest trees close to 130 years old. The area has been a protected nature reserve since 1975 and a listed historic garden since 2005.

The two gardens

The garden is split into two parts of differing character. The Lower Garden (Alsó Kert), bounded by Villányi út, Szüret utca and Ménesi út, has the main entrance and a more orderly layout. The Upper Garden is the one for rare, old specimens: here lives Hungary's oldest Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica), along with the country's oldest Lebanon oak (Quercus libani). The collection as a whole numbers nearly 2,000 species and varieties of ornamental woody plants, hundreds of bulbs and around 250 herbaceous perennials.

The credit also goes to the microclimate. The sheltered, warm basin at the foot of the hill makes it possible to keep outdoors Mediterranean species that elsewhere in Hungary wouldn't survive: figs, pomegranates, evergreen oaks. Walking the paths you notice details that tell another story: the arboretum was the scene of fighting during the siege of Budapest in the Second World War, and on some trunks the marks of bullets and shrapnel are still visible. The reconstruction from 1949 is tied to the name of Mihály Nádasi; a new irrigation system in 1963 allowed more demanding plants to be introduced. Since 2006 the garden has also been a "Bird-Friendly Garden," a recognition earned with the volunteers of BirdLife Hungary: expect birdsong rather than the voices of visiting groups.

Why does it stay so little frequented? Simple location: those who climb the Gellért aim for the citadel and the views over the Danube, and rarely descend the south flank towards a university campus. The result is a silent oasis a few minutes from the most crowded monuments.

How to get there

Getting there: the main entrance is at Villányi út 29-43, well served by trams and buses along Villányi út and nearby Bartók Béla út. On foot it's reachable from the Gellért baths. The arboretum is open seasonally, roughly from 1 March to 23 October, generally from 9:00 to 19:00, with free admission when there are no events. As it's a protected area, it's best to check opening hours and closures on the official site (budaiarboretum.uni-mate.hu) before you go.

When to go

The best periods are spring (from May) and autumn (September-October), when blooms and foliage are at their finest. Bring comfortable shoes: the paths are sloping and unpaved, true to the hillside nature of the place.

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